[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[8:30] All right, we are going to get started. This is the staff meeting of the Hamilton County Commission. April, it's tax day, April 15th, how do we not know that? April 15th, 2025. We have a lot on our agenda today and I want to thank you all for being here. This is a really important meeting. We're going to talk about a number of things and really we're going to talk about the work of the county.
[8:55] And I was just telling someone whether you're a county employee or in partnership with the county.
[9:02] You are the ones doing the work for the county and serving the citizens.
[9:05] So I really, really appreciate you taking the time to be here.
[9:08] It's a really important conversation.
[9:10] And so we're going to get to that second.
[9:12] First we have a proclamation and recognition.
[9:15] So we're recognizing national public safety telecommunication workers week.
[9:21] But before we get to the proclamation, there you are, Andy Nap, Andy is a director of communications here at the county.
[9:28] I do want to recognize that Andy and his team are getting an award from the answer to the call foundation, which was named for Kyle Plush.
[9:39] It's for positive changes made to the communications center, and they're being honored at the Cincinnati Reds game tomorrow in honor of their work.
[9:47] And so I just want to make sure that people understand the good work you're doing.
[9:50] I did highlight some of the work at the state of the county.
[9:53] I know others have done the same.
[9:55] So whether it's delivering a baby or saving someone's life or responding
[9:59] to a tragedy, the work that you all do is so important to this community.
[10:04] People that call 911, I don't think recognize the stress that could happen on that
[10:09] other.
[10:10] Who knows what call you just came off of?
[10:12] And people need to know that someone cares and someone has the expertise to
[10:17] take care of that call.
[10:18] So thank you so much for what you do.
[10:21] Commissioner, before we read the Proclamation,
[10:22] I'm going to offer it to you to have any comments
[10:25] and then we'll launch into the Proclamation.
[10:26] You said it all.
[10:28] I mean, what could we do without all of you?
[10:30] So you're so important to us.
[10:33] So this, again, is a Proclamation recognizing
[10:36] National Public Safety Telecommunicator's Week,
[10:39] where, as public safety telecommunicators,
[10:42] answer emergency and non-emergency calls for service 24 hours a day,
[10:46] 365 days a year, sacrificing weekends, holidays, birthdays, and other special events.
[10:52] And whereas public safety telecommunicators are required to work overtime, adapt to shift
[10:58] work schedules, report to work during hazardous weather conditions, national disasters,
[11:04] and worldwide pandemics. And whereas in 2024 telecommunicators at Hamlet Accounting
[11:11] and the City of Cincinnati answered more than 591,000, 911 calls impacting thousands of lives
[11:21] and working diligently to save people and property, and whereas public safety telecommunicators
[11:27] are highly trained and committed to responding properly with compassion and professionalism
[11:34] to meet the ever-changing needs of citizens, police, fire, and medical personnel, and whereas
[11:40] public safety telecommunicators must stay calm while collecting vital location information quickly
[11:47] determine the severity of the situation and send their proper dispatch response, advise
[11:53] callers, how to remain safe and provide live saving medical instructions over the telephone.
[12:00] And whereas the public safety telecommunicators of the Hamilton County Communications Center
[12:05] are perpetually on duty to serve can be identified by their voices alone
[12:10] as they are rarely seen.
[12:12] Now, therefore, be a proclaim that the Board of County Commissioners of Hamilton County
[12:16] does give due recognition to the women and men of Hamilton County Communications Center
[12:21] for their unwavering commitment to the safety and security of our citizens and first responders
[12:26] having served our county since 1949 and hereby proclaiming April 13th through April 19, 2025
[12:34] as national public safety telecommunicators week.
[12:40] Thank
[12:51] you, Andy.
[12:52] My President, thank you very much for the recognition for the remarks and I'm
[12:57] quite proud of the staff that we have on duty and I marked this year as a year
[13:01] progress.
[13:02] We continue this slow steady progress of rebuilding our workforce just like everyone
[13:06] else did through the pandemic as we lost so many employees we continue to
[13:10] rebuilding. I'm pleased to report to by the end of April. We have the only three vacancies within
[13:16] the dispatcher ranks, which is a market improvement compared to where we have been in the
[13:20] last several years. The women who are with me here today represent some of our training team.
[13:25] In fact, these are the folks that are digging us out of the trenches. They have been nonstop training
[13:29] new employees. As you can imagine, when you start taking 911 calls, unlike in a police and fire
[13:35] service, where you have people that are backing you up, and you always have a trainer with you,
[13:39] and you always have someone overseeing what you're doing.
[13:42] When you answer the call as a 911 operator,
[13:45] your live, your on-front street from day one,
[13:48] the same thing with when you start working
[13:50] on the radio system and your radio dispatching both
[13:52] please and fire, and he's very high profile,
[13:56] high intensity events that are going on.
[13:58] You are alone on the radio and on the microphone
[14:00] on the telephone and despite having someone back there
[14:04] behind you watching you, you have to align your training,
[14:07] you have to align your expertise
[14:08] and the experience that you get through our training program and these folks are accelerating
[14:13] that as quickly as they can because again from day one you don't know if the novel one
[14:18] calls about a parking complaint, a an animal complaint or is it someone having a heart attack
[14:23] or is it someone involved in a massive auto accident or is it a plane crash and literally you
[14:27] can have a range of those types of calls within your single shift. So I'm quite thankful for the
[14:35] the staff that we have, the people that are behind the scenes, they're the ones that truly
[14:39] work hard 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And as a resolution reflects, we have partnered
[14:45] with the city since today very closely to continue to improve the service of 911 throughout
[14:49] the entire county. And we have a very good, very stable relationship with the folks at the Cincinnati
[14:54] the ECC. I'm proud of the work that they do. I'm proud of the work that we
[15:00] We do, and I'm very thankful for the support that this commission, this board has given us over the years. We are enjoying our last public safety telecommunicator week in our current building from the 1970s, and this time next year, I'll be pleased to report to you about the bright shining new building that we have, because of the work that this board has done to get us into a much, much nicer environment. One that will attract people a little stay for their career.
[15:27] made a career out of this myself, it is a very pleasant rewarding career and we still are looking
[15:33] for career oriented people to help us fill our ranks. Nonetheless, very joyous occasion for us.
[15:38] We thank you for the recognition and we'll continue to make you proud and the best we can.
[15:43] Thank you again for coming in. Thank all of you for coming in and congratulations again
[15:47] on the Andy Pleasure Award. It's just a recognition of what we already know
[15:51] is that you're saving lives in this community and working 24-7 to do it.
[15:55] So thanks again for all of that.
[15:58] We would like to get a photo.
[16:00] Thank you.
[16:03] Okay.
[16:03] Safety people that are here, so they could stand with us or back here, I think it's a lot
[16:09] of it.
[16:12] How many people get in there?
[16:14] Three.
[16:15] Yes.
[16:16] Yes.
[16:17] Yes.
[16:17] Yes.
[17:26] All right.
[17:27] Before we get any further, we're going to introduce to us on the day
[17:30] starting with Christy.
[17:32] Christy, you're racial, assistive class.
[17:34] Leslie, herbie, clerk to the board.
[17:36] Stephanie, summer will be a miscommissioner.
[17:39] Hamilton County Commissioner, Alicia Reese.
[17:41] Jeff, a little county administrator.
[17:43] After crossing a system, prosecuting attorney.
[17:45] I'm county commissioner, Denise Reyes.
[17:47] All right, we're going to move on to item number two.
[17:50] This is the federal funding discussion.
[17:53] The reason so many of you are in the room.
[17:55] And again, thank you for being here.
[17:56] I'm aunts and Charlie.
[17:58] He's Hamilton County Deputy Assistant County
[18:00] administrator is going to offer power points and a report regarding this, but before we get
[18:07] to that, let me just say that we three had asked for this report to give us a better understanding
[18:14] of how federal funding impacts, not only our budget, but also the services that we provide
[18:21] to the citizens of the county. And so we ask the aunts and it's been a little while ago to
[18:26] provide that report to help us better understand that it took a while because there are so
[18:32] many impacts to so many agencies in Hamilton County related to the partnership we have with
[18:39] the federal government. And so the top line number of impact is 346 over $346 million and
[18:49] active federal funding awarded between fiscal year 2020 and 2025.
[18:54] So as you can see, that is a tremendous impact to many, many organizations on which we rely
[18:59] to provide important services to the county.
[19:02] So, and so I'm going to turn it over to you to go through your PowerPoint and help better
[19:08] define the conversation and then we will, I appreciate, again, everybody being here,
[19:13] there are many in the room that can answer questions regarding the funding that they receive.
[19:18] And so I appreciate you gathering everyone together and providing us with the opportunity to ask
[19:22] those questions.
[19:24] All right.
[19:24] A President of the House, the Vice President, Summer O'Donnell and Commissioner Rees.
[19:28] Before I begin, I'd just like to recognize some of those in the room, because as you mentioned
[19:33] this report, it's a collaboration.
[19:36] And once who helped all of the department, their agency and staff, they were more than
[19:41] helpful.
[19:42] But I know in the room today, we have a Megan Guthrie from Addiction Response.
[19:45] We've got director Leah Schneider and Neil Townsend and Ryan Braun, who were from DDS.
[19:53] We have our EMA director Nick Crosley.
[19:56] We've got the county's engineer Eric Beck and Lisa Durger.
[20:01] We also have from environmental services, Brad Johnson and Ali Codedat.
[20:06] I think I get that right.
[20:09] For facilities, we have our director Bert Watson from Jobs and Family Services.
[20:13] we have Michael Patton and we also have John Nelson. Planning and development, James Noise
[20:20] this year and then from the Sheriff's office we have Kevin Horan and of course chief
[20:25] Kevin. So I'd like to thank them because without them this report would not be possible.
[20:30] So if you could up, flip the power point.
[20:35] So as you mentioned, President Dree House,
[20:39] we have about $346 million total federal funding that flows into the county and that's
[20:45] active federal funding. And this report is going to categorize the total funding according to
[20:51] the different buckets that we put it in. Grants, you know, congressionally directed spending.
[20:56] It's also going to highlight which departments receive the most federal funding. And then
[21:01] after it identifies those departments, we'll talk about the broad service categories under which
[21:06] that federal funding falls. Of course, as you mentioned, this federal funding is just not to supplement
[21:11] the county budget. We actually accomplished goals that help to enhance our residents' lives.
[21:17] So as we understand where these funds are allocated, we're going to see how they align
[21:21] with county priorities. So first, we're going to start with the overview.
[21:28] There we go.
[21:29] So as you mentioned, department and agencies reported over $340 million in active federal funding.
[21:35] Now this includes one-time grants, recurring operational funds, pass through funding,
[21:43] and
[21:43] It excludes closed grants and expanded grants, so let me explain that.
[21:48] One time grants were the easiest to classify, because these were grants that were granted
[21:51] for a specific project.
[21:53] They only happened one time, and then once that project was completed, it wasn't something
[21:57] that required.
[21:58] So I did not include those in operational expenditures.
[22:02] Now, recurring operational funds, they may have been grants with their grants that happened
[22:06] every year, and the department heads, the agencies, their agency heads are here, and they
[22:11] can talk about that more detail, but I included those grants and operational funds because they
[22:16] were key to the operating of the county or in accomplishing our priorities in our mission.
[22:22] And then there's pass through funding, so I don't want to get confused with funding that
[22:26] passes through the state. Federal funding comes in two forms, basically. Well, more than that,
[22:31] but two forms, indirect and direct funding. So there's direct funding that the federal government
[22:36] gives directly to the county, and there's indirect funding that comes through the state.
[22:41] However, that indirect funding, if the federal government were to lessen that funding, it would
[22:47] affect our operations.
[22:48] So I included that pass through funding funding that passes through the state as an operational
[22:53] funds.
[22:54] When I mentioned pass through funding, I'm talking about funds and different departments that
[22:58] we don't really hold, we get it, and we pass it directly that department so they can work
[23:04] with one of our third parties who deal with housing,
[23:07] you know, some of the non-profits.
[23:09] But it doesn't affect the operation of the county
[23:11] because it doesn't go to support staff
[23:14] or any of our development.
[23:16] So does that make sense?
[23:18] All right.
[23:18] And then of course, Congressually directed spending
[23:20] our earmarks.
[23:22] And those came back, I believe, in fiscal year 2020,
[23:26] we have received millions of dollars in those.
[23:28] Those are generally one-time funds that are given to us,
[23:32] but they also form an important part of meeting the priorities that we have.
[23:38] Now, this report excludes closed grants. So in other words, if an apartment or an agency
[23:42] got a grant, spent all of the money and that's closed, I did not include that in the $346
[23:48] million number for obvious reasons.
[23:54] All right, let's see how that breaks down into those categories. So
[23:57] One-time grants, $59.8 million, operational funding, which is the vast majority of our federal funding, is $175.6 million.
[24:10] And then Pastor funding is about $5 million.
[24:13] So you can see, as you mentioned, the President's Rehouse, that federal funding forms, we use that money to perform the core priorities, the core functions of our county, and it's very important.
[24:23] It's the vast majority of what we use our federal funding for.
[24:28] Now the top funding recipients are the Department of Disability Services at 162.9 million.
[24:36] Jobs and family services at 80.6 million and I'm going to skip the public health and I'll explain that in a reason.
[24:44] About 20.9 million dollars. If you can see those top funding recipients, they deal with our health and human services.
[24:51] So, they serve the county in ways that affect the ones who are the most vulnerable amongst us.
[24:58] Now, the MSD, this is an anticipated investment tax credit.
[25:02] So, we have a project that we are completing that if we meet all of the criteria of that project,
[25:09] the county can be refunded up to $40 million once that project is complete.
[25:14] So, it's kind of a one-off, but $40 million is nothing to sneeze at, right?
[25:18] So that's why I concluded that, it's part of our top federal funding.
[25:24] So then, how does this federal funding align with our core principles, the way that we serve?
[25:30] I was reading an article on one of the trade journals and it said that the primary responsibility of any government
[25:36] is to create conditions that enable its residents to thrive.
[25:41] And I know that each of the commissioners are dedicated to that principle.
[25:45] I know that all of the department and agency heads and everyone who works with the county are dedicated to that.
[25:51] So we're going to talk about areas in which this funding is used in order to do that and to meet that priority.
[25:59] So first is health and human services.
[26:02] And if you think about the work that developmental disabilities does, jobs and family services, public health,
[26:10] they affect those who are most at need, those who are most vulnerable.
[26:14] And again, we have the directors of these departments here that can go into more detail on the programs,
[26:23] but this is vital in order to meet our four priorities and to help in the meeting the operational objectives of the county.
[26:34] And of course, we have emergency in public safety.
[26:37] We know we just experienced a flood.
[26:39] In order to prepare for respond to and recover from emergencies,
[26:42] It is necessary to have that federal partner.
[26:46] I mean, we don't want to minimize how much our federal partners are in doing or in helping
[26:52] us meet those needs, along with, of course, the Hamilton County Sheriff and the coroner's
[26:58] office.
[27:00] And then infrastructure and environment, I mean, we want to drive on safe roads, we want
[27:05] to have safe bridges, the environmental services department helps us with our air.
[27:11] And then, as mentioned that one of the project, the Metropolitan Sewer District, I'm going to
[27:16] take a quick break in Grabba, a underwater.
[27:20] I thought that was a reference to MSD.
[27:24] I'm like, what are we talking about?
[27:26] Okay, sorry.
[27:28] Carry on.
[27:28] Ah, thank you.
[27:33] All right.
[27:35] And then we get down to the heart of it when we talk about community and economic development.
[27:39] I'm not going to go into detail here because we just had a wonderful presentation done by our director and the staff of planning and development.
[27:48] They talked about the block grants that we have, the home investment partnerships and the emergency solutions grant,
[27:55] and how that helps with affordable housing and how it helps serve the 49 different jurisdictions throughout the county.
[28:01] So again, we can create the conditions that enable our community to thrive.
[28:08] So, in conclusion, I forgot to mention, this isn't going to be a brief presentation.
[28:13] In conclusion, we actively manage about $346 million in federal funding.
[28:21] It supports a broad range of functions that serve our community, disability services, jobs
[28:26] and family support, public health and infrastructure, public safety, helping us to respond
[28:32] to floods, keeping our community safe, and also developing their economies as our community
[28:37] communities can thrive. Most of these funds, most of them, are in programs that directly affect
[28:45] the community or they operate in order to support the county so that we can directly affect
[28:51] and enhance the lives of our residents. Again, I can't emphasize enough that this is just,
[28:57] this is not pork barrel money, this is money that we send out into the community so that we
[29:02] can make Hamilton County a better place to live.
[29:06] And it comes with a caveat, no, this is no secret.
[29:09] We're living in a changing federal policy landscape.
[29:14] If we want to be successful as we navigate this landscape,
[29:18] we're going to have to monitor what's
[29:20] happening at the federal level, but then also adapt
[29:23] to the changes that we see.
[29:25] And that's why meetings like this are important,
[29:28] but this can't be a one-time thing.
[29:30] This has to be an ongoing conversation.
[29:31] And as we see those changes, we can have to work as one Hamilton County in order to navigate
[29:38] this landscape.
[29:39] Because remember, and you all know that principle of foundation, we're here to create
[29:44] conditions so that we can let our residents enable them to thrive.
[29:50] So with that, if there are any questions, specific questions, I would defer to the agency department
[29:56] heads we're here about programs.
[30:00] But that concludes our presentation. Thank you so much, Hansen. Really appreciate it. I agree with the idea that we are all here to help citizens thrive. So thank you for emphasizing that.
[30:12] I think this exercise is incredibly important so that there's a common understanding about where the intersection is between the federal funding and the our ability to do the work here in Hamilton County.
[30:24] So I want to just mention a couple of things because my guess is that not everyone that is here will come up to speak.
[30:32] But I do want to highlight some of the breadth of where these dollars go and some of the impacts.
[30:39] So I'm just very briefly and you've provided us with a report that details not only the dollar amounts per agency, but also some of the programming per agency that is impacted by federal dollars.
[30:51] So, I'm briefly going to pop through some of these just to put a further emphasis on what
[30:57] you're talking about.
[30:58] So, under addition response, we've got, and these are all departments, summaries that are
[31:03] impacted by federal funding or receive federal funding for the programs.
[31:07] Additionally, Sponsored, Adult Court, Drug Court, Opioid Effective Youth.
[31:13] We've got reentry work going on.
[31:15] The coroner's office is doing DNA capacity and he has been for backlog, reduction grants,
[31:22] DDS is impacted through child nutrition and early intervention supports.
[31:29] EMA is impacted through the first responder equipment and training to local communities.
[31:34] The engineer's office has a multitude of road and bridge projects that are being funded through federal money.
[31:40] Environmental services does work through air quality control pollution reduction and climate change mitigation
[31:47] that apartment of facilities is doing energy efficient upgrades.
[31:52] Jobs and family services, the impacts are very numerous to numerous, but it's safe to say that this is the safety net.
[31:59] And many children and families depend on these federal dollars.
[32:03] JV court is impacted through the anti-human trafficking grant, the Girls Court grant,
[32:08] $800,000 annually going to foster care.
[32:12] You mentioned MSD and some of the flood prevention were trying to do there, planning and development
[32:18] is impacted through affordable housing work, neighborhood improvements and addressing homelessness.
[32:23] The public defender is impacted through the JuVow Indigent Defense Program, and public
[32:29] health is doing work related to some unexpected infant death, maternal health, child health
[32:35] services and led has heard reduction, and that is to name a few, it is certainly not to
[32:41] name all even all the agencies or all the programs that are impacted.
[32:45] So I just wanted to put a finer point on what we're talking about and you mentioned also
[32:50] kind of the different categories of impact of including public health, impact in the most vulnerable,
[32:58] especially children and families, infrastructure work, public safety works through the
[33:05] work that we're doing planning and development. So there is just a wide breadth of impacts here
[33:12] related to these federal partnerships. So I just wanted to call a couple of people up or
[33:19] commissioners, is that all right? Do you mind if I call before comments or would you rather?
[33:24] We go to commissioner comments and then we can ask a couple of folks that are in the audience to come
[33:28] up and respond to questions. I have some questions for this presentation. Okay, well that's
[33:35] Let's see that. All right, we'll go to questions for Anson first and then call up some
[33:41] individuals that represent some of these organizations that are impacted. So, Commissioner
[33:46] Sam Rodimus. That's right. Yeah. So, I just want to ask a question, Anson, as you
[33:54] you indicated at top high funding recipients, which leaves emergency public safety, and it also leaves
[34:04] many active economic development, and I just would like not now, just to break down.
[34:11] So I total 264 million for the top funding recipients.
[34:16] If you could just break down those environmental and emergency public safety funding
[34:21] I would like to also know that because they're of course extremely important. That was only question that I had.
[34:26] Great. Thank you. Commissioner Reese. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. This presentation is huge today because we finally get to have an understanding of the dollars that flow through here.
[34:40] the dollars that we control and some of them that you've indicated that are one time
[34:45] dollars and over 300 million dollars is nothing to sneeze it.
[34:52] I wanted to ask you though, you said active federal funding, FY20 through 25, have we broken out these that are,
[35:02] I'm trying to find out what's effective this year because obviously if we've already,
[35:07] If we have gotten those funds, the ones that are most at risk would be under this new administration.
[35:16] And so, I don't know if you have the answer today, but I'd like to know, pulling out was at risk today.
[35:25] And then if there's something that was approved, and maybe you could talk about that.
[35:28] There's projects or things that were approved, but we didn't get the paperwork.
[35:33] But if we got the paperwork, we're supposed to have the money.
[35:39] And the way that Washington is running now,
[35:41] I'd love for them to go ahead and cash out into us,
[35:44] because they seem to be changing every day.
[35:47] Can you explain that difference between
[35:51] if there's some things that are in the pipeline
[35:54] and some things that are not necessarily safe?
[35:58] So I can explain it from the point of view of the process,
[36:02] the historical process for let's say grant funding. So grant funding you would apply for
[36:07] and we're talking about competitive grants here. You would apply for the grant. You would submit
[36:13] your application and they would notify if you were awarded that application. Usually they would
[36:19] contact you again and they would ask for more information, which means that you pretty much
[36:23] been selected to receive the grant. Once you provide that information, you would be notified that
[36:29] were awarded the grant but then you would have to have a signed grant agreement. Now some grants
[36:34] are reimbursement and some they give you the money upfront. So of course if they give you
[36:39] the money upfront it would be technically safer than those that are reimbursable.
[36:45] As I mentioned we're in a changing policy environment so it's important to monitor grants whether
[36:52] we have a signed agreement now grants that you and money that we've expended part of them.
[36:57] we have to monitor pretty much all the federal funds because of this changing environment.
[37:02] So when you say safe, that's really a speculation. I really can't say what's safe, what's not.
[37:11] But I can get you a breakdown on what we have agreements for and then the agency and department
[37:17] heads who are here can possibly give you the information of what has been expended and what has
[37:24] I'll give you an example with this Sheriff's Grant, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Grant.
[37:28] It's a grant for VR training for officers, I think it's a de-escalation training.
[37:32] I listed the award of the total grant, but they have spent most of that money down,
[37:37] and they can give an update on how much is left in that fund.
[37:41] But it was easier to list the total award because the spend down is constantly changing.
[37:46] So any report that I would give you would be out of date by the time that I typed it up
[37:51] and send it through the email.
[37:54] But it's like I said, as far as safest concerned,
[37:58] again, we're living in a changing federal policy environment.
[38:02] And we just have to monitor everything
[38:03] and then react accordingly.
[38:06] Thank you.
[38:07] Yeah, that's what I wanted to really ask.
[38:09] Because I know, like you said, you know, 346 million,
[38:13] but some of it may have been, we've gotten
[38:15] or used it, and some we don't.
[38:18] And for me, it would be helpful to know
[38:20] What is that risk in 25 because I think and I know originally we're asking for the total
[38:27] But what would be at risk at 25 and I think that
[38:33] You have an I appreciate you putting in the one time
[38:37] Components now. Let me actually this in here is just strictly federal right, so
[38:43] Joss family services would not include the
[38:47] the levy dollars that this is only federal money.
[38:50] Okay, I wanted to make sure that that was identified.
[38:53] And I wanted to also say that when we look at this,
[38:58] the 346 million that we're bringing in from the federal component
[39:02] into our portfolio without these federal dollars,
[39:07] because this is hitting everybody from mom, dead, grandma,
[39:11] grandkids, use new name it, people with disabilities have if we don't have that then it
[39:17] hits to a point of something that I'm not supportive of which is taxes could go up because
[39:23] these are services that we're able to get from the federal government and that's why these
[39:28] dollars are so important. Sure, very true. I would like to also emphasize that if a grant was
[39:35] granted even during this period, if the money's been totally expended, I did not include that
[39:40] the staff report. So these are only open grants. They may not have the full amount awarded
[39:47] amount right now, but they're still open. There's still money left in them that needs to be
[39:52] spent. Gotcha. And then some of these grants where there are people hired to expend the grants,
[40:00] you know, sometimes you have a grant program five years, six years, what have you, and the people
[40:04] have to administer them and you're saying, you know, if they were to, because it could affect
[40:10] jobs, right. So that's true. Usually grants will include an administrative portion and we
[40:17] have hired individuals who administer those grants and oversee them. Even for programs, there
[40:22] are people who, the grants fund their employment to carry out the operations, daily operations.
[40:28] Again, for details on that, I can refer to the Department of Agency heads. But yes, staff is
[40:34] involved in part of this 346 million.
[40:37] Well, thank you very much.
[40:38] I wanted to ask those questions, because I think
[40:40] was different.
[40:41] It's usually when you finally get a government grant.
[40:45] It's supposed to be, you know, you could take it to the bank
[40:48] and it's supposed to be able to be cashed.
[40:50] And we're living in a time that even though you went through all
[40:53] of it, got the paper, we're got the grant,
[40:56] and you're planning on it, we're at a point now
[40:59] where it might say, it's a sufficient funds because of the leadership
[41:03] that's happening for Washington. So this is different and I appreciate the report.
[41:09] Thank you. I just I want to again put some finer points on something. So it's striking that
[41:17] this 346 million are active federal grants. As you say, it doesn't take into account grants that
[41:25] have been expended during this period of time. So this is a smaller portion of those partnership
[41:31] So I did want to emphasize that I think it's really important to note that and you know
[41:36] goes without saying that we are here today because there is a shift happening at the federal government
[41:42] and that's why we thought it important to do this exercise to have this conversation to make sure that we
[41:48] collectively understand where these dollars go, what they're used for here in Hamilton County.
[41:56] So Commissioner, some of the ministers did you have one last thing?
[41:58] Yes, I just want to apologize for asking you for information for you to get for me because I was looking at the PowerPoint, but the attachment that you gave us, the summary has everything that I asked for. So thank you. Appreciate it.
[42:12] You're welcome. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Sure thing. Just real quick one for the words information. I think for those of you that follow, there's watching maybe following County government closely, the one thing that you will note that does not
[42:28] appear in here that might be noticeable by its exclusion is our profonding, which is just
[42:35] north of 150 million. Those dollars also, as Anson said, we're specifically not included
[42:41] in here because we have obligated all of those funds by the obligation deadline under the law,
[42:49] which was the end of 2024 and we're about 77% spent through that with an expenditure deadline
[42:56] of December of 2026, but they weren't included here in here because we did meet that obligation
[43:02] deadline.
[43:03] So just if commissioners were looking for it, that's why it was not included in your
[43:07] as well.
[43:07] We're glad that it's not included, Jennifer.
[43:09] Thank you.
[43:10] Thank you for the clarity.
[43:12] Thank you, Hansen.
[43:14] So I just wanted to call a couple of folks up because again, the impact here is human services.
[43:20] It is related to the work we do through JFS.
[43:23] It's related to the roads and bridges that we built.
[43:27] It's related to emergency risk.
[43:28] It's just all over the map.
[43:31] And so I think it might be helpful to hear.
[43:33] It's Michael Patton in the room.
[43:35] There you are.
[43:36] Michael, you know, and as we look through this list
[43:38] of those that receive significant portions of this funding,
[43:43] you are near the top of the list over at JFS.
[43:46] And so I just wanted to have you
[43:48] expand just a little bit on what these numbers represent.
[43:52] Yeah, for us, I think it's good to know
[43:53] right now we're going through the budget process at the state. So right now we haven't seen any
[43:57] indication that the allocations that we get to administer services in Hamilton County are going to be
[44:02] significantly impacted. Again, as Hanson mentioned and has been discussed here for earlier, you never know.
[44:10] And so as it stands now, all of the funding allocations we get for children services, actually that has
[44:17] been slightly increased at the state level for services that we provide to children and care,
[44:22] our child's board allocation and our ten-of-allocations are going to remain flat, but a lot of
[44:28] that figure that you looked at is administration but also passed through dollars for families who
[44:34] received direct services through our programming, SNAP benefits, obviously Medicaid benefits,
[44:40] any adjustments, any changes to eligibility for those families will have an impact on the citizens
[44:47] of Ham and Accounting. If the thresholds for eligibility change, families will be impacted by
[44:52] that. Any cost-saving measure associated with the programs that we serve as an administer
[44:58] have a real end.
[45:00] In fact, on a family's and every aspect of the program that we provide in the county. And so, as we stand here today, we feel relatively good about what we're seeing.
[45:12] The state legislature and all of our associations are monitoring this really closely along with the directors of the county, job and family services.
[45:19] We get we owe funding as well that we need to make sure we keep keep an eye on.
[45:24] But as that stands, we're looking relatively good.
[45:27] But just want to make sure that you all know and the people watching at home understand
[45:31] any adjustments and the eligibility criteria, any adjustments in the funding that we get
[45:36] to administer the programs that we provide in Hamilton County, have real impact on real families.
[45:44] It can reduce our ability to keep kids safe if there's a change in the allocation
[45:49] we get for children services department. It can impact the levels of stat benefits we provide for
[45:56] example for families who are in need of food benefits. It can impact eligibility for Medicaid,
[46:03] expanded eligibility for Medicaid if that changes. There would be a phase in process if that were
[46:10] to change and we would deny people eligibility that currently have eligibility. So those are some
[46:15] things that I see as it that could be significant impacts locally for a family as a
[46:21] Heavenly County through our program.
[46:23] Thanks, Michael.
[46:25] We put just one.
[46:26] Yeah, I had a kind of a, so you were I wrote down relatively good with a, for me, I
[46:34] can't be out because it is relatively good because they maintained, they haven't decreased
[46:40] But as we've talked, the last few weeks at the services for vendors and for children has gone way up.
[46:48] So we're looking good because they haven't taken anything away.
[46:51] But we just don't want people to think that we don't need more because they're more children in the system.
[46:59] And the vendors are asked them for more.
[47:01] So we're good right now.
[47:03] So let's make sure we...
[47:04] As far as that allocation is concerned in child welfare, exactly.
[47:07] The local funding for the levees is a different animal altogether.
[47:11] We're talking federal funding today.
[47:13] The local levee funding is exactly what you just mentioned.
[47:17] Possible care is increasing.
[47:19] A cutewede of needs of kids and care is increasing.
[47:23] And so we are looking at that closely over the next two years to make sure that we are able
[47:29] to continue to meet that need locally.
[47:31] Thank you.
[47:32] Thank you for the clarity.
[47:34] Yes, thank you. I was looking on this chart here and it indicated from the federal funding component you have over a little over eighty million dollars.
[47:48] What's the total budget of JFS?
[47:51] I know that's the federal, is that the federal want to say to federal alone is 80 million, but total with all the sources of funding is 250 million.
[48:07] So 80 million dollars and then you indicated that right now you don't see any changes, I've been hearing a lot about Medicaid.
[48:16] That not been changed because I mean I think there's some there have been some discussions about
[48:22] the expanded Medicare
[48:25] Population that gets currently is eligible for
[48:28] Medicare based on income that going away that change you're going to be in reduce
[48:32] Would impact a number of folks in the county if that were to change or if that were to be reduced
[48:37] I had that has not come to pass yet and so we continue to advocate through our associations to keep things where they are
[48:43] because expanded Medicaid
[48:44] is a huge, I think, cost for all of us locally, as well as state and nationally, and so
[48:52] any modification or change to the folks that would be currently eligible to receive Medicaid.
[48:58] If that were the change and they were no longer eligible to receive Medicaid, that would be a huge
[49:02] impact on local hospitals and healthcare providers in our area to continue to provide that service
[49:08] to those individuals and families.
[49:09] Okay, so you're saying Medicaid or Medicaid, those who are Medicare could get cut as well.
[49:16] Well, Medicare is a federal program, so that we don't administer, so I want to make sure
[49:20] we don't administer Medicare locally, we just administer Medicaid, so that could be a change as well
[49:26] from the federal perspective in terms of Medicare beneficiaries, their eligibility, et cetera.
[49:31] But locally, we manage and maintain and administer Medicaid, state Medicaid.
[49:35] Right, right, that is what you said, both, so I'm sorry.
[49:38] the medicare medicate so i just i'm sorry i'm at the medicate
[49:42] so i can medicate
[49:43] we're talking medicate cry
[49:44] okay the other thing i was important to be because
[49:48] as a therapist is the safety net
[49:53] and with unemployment uh...
[49:58] you know hitting some people
[50:00] some people federal workers and lost their jobs and for people's losing their jobs
[50:04] people are cutting back and we get the 80 million, right now you don't see a problem on the system of the 80 million that we're getting.
[50:18] It won't impact that is what I'm asking, or do you see a possible impact coming up?
[50:23] In terms of unemployment employment and everything that's going up.
[50:26] Yes, absolutely.
[50:27] What should we need, Jay?
[50:28] Sure.
[50:29] Now we'll need you.
[50:29] Absolutely.
[50:30] There's a possibility that due to loss of income, loss of employment, there might
[50:36] be an increase in the community for people who want and need to apply for a public
[50:40] benefits either to Anna, or Medicaid, or SNAT benefits.
[50:46] We also operate the Ohio Means Job Center, so we're involved directly with that service
[50:51] from a GFS contract to perspective.
[50:53] we're the contracted operator for the Ohio one stop or the
[50:57] and one kind of one stop. So there could be an impact certainly there for
[51:00] dislocated workers that come in to receive services through Weola. So if that
[51:06] funding changes, there could be certainly some impact there as well. Yes. And then on
[51:11] snap, because people are, you know, they're watching all this stuff and you know,
[51:15] President, he's an executive orders like crazy. And we're hearing snap, we're
[51:21] medical care. We're hearing all these things. And you said,
[51:26] SNAP has not been affected right now. There's not been a change for our
[51:29] allocation proposed in the state budget. Got you. Okay. Well, that's what I
[51:35] wanted to get out there because there's a lot of information. They seem to
[51:39] sign an executive order in 30 days later. Don't hear anything else. And then
[51:43] all of a sudden it's not what they see it. So that's good to know. $80 million
[51:47] There's right now you don't anticipate any problems.
[51:50] We haven't seen through the current budget process, any modification to change is to what
[51:55] is going to be allocated to us.
[51:57] There was slightly, like I said, sliding creases in our child welfare allocation through
[52:01] the Department of Children and Youth, some modifications and changes to adult protective
[52:05] services which was an increase to services for adults, older adults, no significant decreases
[52:11] cuts. It was a big hit and helped. Thank you. Thank you.
[52:15] Thank you.
[52:19] So commissioners, another component that I want to kind of add as well the 80 million
[52:23] dollars that we receive here locally mostly goes towards like operations and some amount
[52:29] of payments to the public, but also there's a good number of our programs that generate
[52:34] state payments. So we do the eligibility here, but the payments come from the state.
[52:39] So three programs that come to my mind immediately is Medicaid and child care as well as food and
[52:49] cash assistance. Those are paid from the state and last year we brought in about 2.3 billion dollars
[52:56] in assistance from the state. So those were money that our local county JFS doesn't see, but our residents receive
[53:04] through the eligibility work that we do for them here as well.
[53:09] Thanks for the clarity.
[53:11] Thank you for that.
[53:12] The other one that's a very large amount.
[53:15] It's the largest amount.
[53:16] It's the Department of Disability Services at 162 million.
[53:20] And the latest nighter is here.
[53:22] Leah, could you just ask you for you to help us with an understanding of the impact of these federal dollars to the work that you do?
[53:33] So one of the things that I do want to clarify about that number because when you look at that number it's larger than our total budget
[53:40] but the reason that we included that is because it's very vital in terms of how our budget dollars are spent. The largest line item in our budget is Medicaid waiver match.
[53:49] And so that federal portion doesn't come through our agency but we use our local match and pull down those federal dollars.
[53:57] And so that is the largest line item that you see that we receive in terms of federal funds.
[54:05] The one thing that I want to talk about a little bit is what Medicaid match actually means.
[54:11] So we're talking about impact a budget but really in everyday life what that looks like is personal care for people with disabilities.
[54:18] Things like help with bathing, eating, preparing meals.
[54:22] It could also include things like transportation, help to find jobs, and keep jobs.
[54:28] It includes things like respite care for families and parents, so really things that help people live their everyday life in the community.
[54:36] And so that really is the biggest impact or potential impact that we see.
[54:40] Now I do want to be very clear that at this point there haven't been cuts to that Medicaid match.
[54:45] But that is something that is receiving a lot of federal discussion right now.
[54:49] And that is probably where we see the largest potential risk because as I said that federal
[54:55] match really provides those services in the community along with our local dollars that we
[54:59] contribute.
[55:01] And some of the things that we're hearing that our under consideration are things like changing
[55:06] that federal match percentage, so how much the federal government contributes, right now they
[55:12] pay about 65% of the Medicaid cost.
[55:16] And so we've done the math and even just a 1% change in that federal match would be at least two and a half million dollars annually for us, and so if you start talking about a 5% at 10% adjustment, that's obviously a significant impact to those direct services that I mentioned.
[55:32] We do have some other areas that are Medicaid related funding to support case managers who help monitor services and authorize those services for people.
[55:42] Early intervention services are supported through grant funding, that helps babies and toddlers and their families navigate services when their child is born with the disability or delay.
[55:55] So those are really the key impacts.
[55:57] But what we're watching the most closely is those Medicaid fund that support the direct services.
[56:03] Yes, thank you. Thank you. We've heard that not twice.
[56:05] So thank you for the clarity. Appreciate it. Thanks for what you all do. Any questions for Leah?
[56:11] Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I just want to call a couple others up. I do have a question.
[56:18] I'm sorry. I apologize. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification.
[56:26] There's been a lot of, like you said, a lot of news reports on people with disabilities.
[56:33] Are there any other components? I know that you talked about your get your eye on it.
[56:38] But are there any temporary, I thought I saw one of, I don't know how many executive orders
[56:46] that were signed, but something that would impact people with disabilities, is that affecting
[56:52] that affect us because people are going to need the funding and then secondly I heard
[56:57] that it from a person who would get approval for disability and I understand it's been changed.
[57:07] You could go in the computer, I don't know if they changed it back, because again, it's a 30-day
[57:11] window when he signs these executive orders.
[57:14] But my understanding, they go in and for years, they were filling it out.
[57:19] And one of the people were in our, and one of those homes that LAD put together.
[57:23] But they were filling it out every year, no problem.
[57:26] But this time it said, you can't fill it out.
[57:29] You had to call a number.
[57:30] And he said, it indicated to me that they said it would be like 200 hours before they could
[57:36] get back to you. It has that been changed or have you heard from that? Is that effect us because obviously people if so they would need to stop get some funding to continue as they're waiting to get approved again.
[57:49] Yeah. So there are two things that come to mind that may be what they're talking about.
[57:53] The Medicaid or the Medicaid eligibility process in the past there have been some people with lifelong disabilities that have had been able to forego some of the steps that somebody that maybe has a temporary disability
[58:04] has been able to do. There have been some changes in terms of how that re-determination
[58:08] happens on a regular basis. And so we do have a benefits team that's helping people
[58:13] with that. The other area is social security because a lot of the people that we serve
[58:17] also are able to receive social security benefits and SSDI's disability benefits. And so
[58:25] there have been some modifications. We don't know if those will be temporary yet or not,
[58:30] but, you know, not having the ability to do things by phone.
[58:34] So they have to be done online or in person.
[58:37] The timeline to get an in-person appointment
[58:40] because they don't accept walk-ins
[58:41] is very, very lengthy and seems to be getting much longer
[58:45] all the time.
[58:46] That was something that I just heard from our team recently
[58:48] is that the appointments are so far out there
[58:51] that people are really asking a lot of questions about that.
[58:54] So we are trying to take steps on our end
[58:57] as well to try to help people navigate that process, to help them navigate the online system
[59:03] because that can be very complicated and difficult, but that is something that I think
[59:07] is having an impact on people now that we are working through and trying to provide support
[59:11] around.
[59:13] I want to keep an eye on that because while we're talking about the funds which is very important,
[59:19] what we have now, which is not guaranteed now, but there's another component on process that
[59:26] to impact because if we have people with disabilities and they can't get, you know,
[59:32] re-certified if you will, now there's a gap time and they've got gas electric, rent
[59:38] or mortgage or all these other things, doctors' appointments, they have all this cost adding
[59:44] up and they're going to need someone on the ground locally and that impacts us if we don't
[59:50] have additional funds, because we didn't have to deal with that at first.
[59:55] So I do want, as we, at the context of the obviously, the...
[1:00:00] Discussion today is that the change of process, the freezing of funds, the freezing of programs, the put on hold, if you will, the bills are not on hold, the bills are still coming. And that can affect even the funds that we, we've been approved of because we got approved under an older system, where we didn't have this bottleneck. And this is serious business.
[1:00:25] And I've never seen such an attack on people with disabilities.
[1:00:30] I mean, I just never heard of that in senior citizens.
[1:00:33] So I wanted to bring that up because, like you said, you've got this and we're hoping to hold
[1:00:38] it on to this.
[1:00:39] But then there's a whole lot of processes, new systems, if you will, bottlenecks systems,
[1:00:46] that's affecting people with disabilities who just may not know what to do because the
[1:00:53] the bills and things are powered up on them.
[1:00:56] So I wanted to bring that out because that's something
[1:00:58] that was brought to my attention as well.
[1:00:59] Yeah, thank you and we will stay on top of that
[1:01:01] and happy to provide other updates as well.
[1:01:03] Thank you, yeah, please keep us in the loop.
[1:01:05] Thank you.
[1:01:07] I'm going to ask Eric Beck, our county engineer
[1:01:10] to come up real quick, if you could be brief, Eric.
[1:01:14] In your presentation, you're generally very good about that.
[1:01:18] But yeah, we've heard a couple of human services
[1:01:20] related impacts talk to us about Rosen Bridges. Sure for Rosen Bridges you know as you're
[1:01:28] aware the county engineers office has restricted funds so our budget is stagnant and yet construction
[1:01:34] cost have gone up about 30% in the last five years. So we rely heavily on all sorts of grants.
[1:01:42] In the next five years we're anticipating $12 million in grants so that's about 25% more money
[1:01:50] that we can use in our road improvement projects.
[1:01:53] These are all competitive grants.
[1:01:55] We apply for grants through any source we can get them.
[1:02:00] We have about a 10% success rate.
[1:02:03] So it is competitive.
[1:02:04] We put a lot of work into getting these grants.
[1:02:09] We have nine, 10 projects right now for the next five years
[1:02:13] that it about $12.4 million
[1:02:17] that we are moving forward with assuming that these projects will get done.
[1:02:24] They are all pastries, so we're working through the Ohio Department of Transportation on these.
[1:02:29] We're not sure if the feds will actually come through with the money or not.
[1:02:32] So if they don't, probably 50% of those projects would be postponed,
[1:02:38] because we just do not have the funds to do them.
[1:02:40] So, for the engineer's office, grant money, especially federal grant money, is our life blood,
[1:02:49] because it's our only opportunity to get more funds to help repair our infrastructure
[1:02:56] and keep it in good working order, so that all the citizens of the county can travel safely.
[1:03:03] Yes, thank you.
[1:03:04] Appreciate that.
[1:03:05] I wish there was any questions for you.
[1:03:07] I just wanted to commend you because one of the things was, we were going to be more aggressive
[1:03:13] and trying to get these federal funds.
[1:03:16] Today is Tax Day, and they've taken money from taxpayers of Hamilton County and it goes
[1:03:22] up to Washington.
[1:03:24] And what we're trying to do is say, hey, we want some of the money back from Washington back
[1:03:28] here to fix our roads and fix our bridges to help what our safety net, to help grandma, help
[1:03:34] Well, we have announced that they don't take out money, and they got our stuff on hold.
[1:03:39] And so you just indicated, we got more people saying, hey, we got old aging infrastructure.
[1:03:45] We're trying to get our bridges, not just the Brent Spence Bridge, but other bridges throughout
[1:03:49] Hamilton County.
[1:03:50] We want to be safe.
[1:03:51] People mad about pot holes and all those different things.
[1:03:54] And we tried to be aggressive in getting, and the people that are in this room were very
[1:03:59] aggressive to compete with everybody across the United States of America.
[1:04:02] But today we had to put our taxes up and we don't send them up the Washington.
[1:04:08] And we're saying we got to get our fair share back down here to help us be able to survive.
[1:04:13] So I want to thank you because your office got really aggressive with trying to get these grants.
[1:04:18] And that's why we're here today is that we did what we're supposed to do.
[1:04:22] We went through a competitive bid and now it's time to pay up and now we're in limbo.
[1:04:28] But we're not in limbo right now.
[1:04:30] We're sending those taxes up the Washington.
[1:04:31] So I just wanted to highlight and thank you for that and what you know.
[1:04:37] Thanks.
[1:04:37] Thank you.
[1:04:38] Just two more EMA, Nick Crosley is here.
[1:04:42] Nick, you know, you are Homeland Security, you are preparedness, your emergency management,
[1:04:48] and so could you briefly just highlight some of the potential impacts here.
[1:04:53] Sure.
[1:04:54] So we are agency on behalf of the countywide,
[1:04:58] manages all homeland security grants. So we get what's called the urban area security initiative.
[1:05:04] That's about a little over 1.4 million a year. That funding is spent supporting mainly a lot of
[1:05:12] our specialty operations teams. So from a law enforcement it's the bomb squad, it's the SWAT teams,
[1:05:19] the dive team. We also support a civil response unit, urban, urban search and rescue has materials teams.
[1:05:25] So, we've held that funding so that all the reimbursements have come under increased scrutiny
[1:05:33] and they're basically delayed and so we have about a million dollars waiting for reimbursement right now
[1:05:39] or the county does. And so we've slowed down the purchasing process just to make sure that the reimbursement is made.
[1:05:49] And so going forward, we're not sure what they're going to do, they pass the continuing
[1:05:53] resolution for 25, as you know, conceivably in the past that has met the programs that
[1:05:58] you had in place the previous year would continue at the same funding levels, however we
[1:06:01] don't know that for sure.
[1:06:03] And so we anticipate, I think they have about five or six weeks left to get out guidance
[1:06:08] if they're going to do the programs, same program, same level through FEMA and DHS.
[1:06:13] So we're waiting to hear from that to see if we should be awarded FY25 funds at that level.
[1:06:18] And then we also have the emergency management performance grant, which is also both of these programs come through the state of Ohio emergency management agency.
[1:06:25] So that's a reimbursement grant as well that helps offset about 15% of our staff costs 20% so that's a 50-50 grant and requires a dollar for dollar match and multi-county matches that's 61.
[1:06:37] With their emergency management agency. So those funds are, I don't know if they're at risk, so we're just being cautious as we move forward.
[1:06:45] but it puts it risk. As I explained to you, our congressional representative recently, when I met with them,
[1:06:52] yes, you help fund some of the equipment that these teams use that protect our residents and can respond and help them in
[1:06:59] their times of their greatest need. However, the true investment comes in the local communities who maintain the
[1:07:05] equipment, who fund the staff to take care of them. We house several of these specialty teams at our
[1:07:10] at our public safety warehouse that you're familiar with, so they are part of the system that
[1:07:15] helps fund the overall response, but the real cost is at the local level and funded by local
[1:07:20] governments.
[1:07:21] Great.
[1:07:21] Thank you.
[1:07:22] Thank you.
[1:07:22] Any questions for Nick?
[1:07:23] I've got a question.
[1:07:27] You mentioned the word reimbursement and the ones that are going to be reimbursed or supposed to
[1:07:35] be reimbursed.
[1:07:35] And I want to commend you as well, because you're very aggressive at going and get these grants to try to bring back our fair share of the tax money that we pay to
[1:07:45] want to live that being said, they put us on a reimbursement program, and that's where we got to put up some money, right?
[1:07:53] And then we show receipts in my or to get back to us, and with that, have we started on things that we got to prove for how we started
[1:08:03] spending the money in hopes of being reimbursed or are we waiting?
[1:08:09] So it's always worked like this and there's never, never been an issue getting reimbursed
[1:08:14] in a timely fashion.
[1:08:16] So with the recent executive orders and the guidance to put the grants under the reimbursments
[1:08:25] under greater scrutiny based on the criteria that the federal government has, we currently
[1:08:29] have been waiting a month on about a million dollars and so to ensure that we limit the exposure
[1:08:38] of the county. So basically the way it works is the county fronts the money. We purchased
[1:08:43] the equipment once we receive it and we send it to the state who then can usually quickly
[1:08:48] process the reimbursement but so I just want to make sure that we get reimbursed for that
[1:08:54] and dollars before we continue to spend. But we have, I think, about $3 million and basically
[1:09:00] great agreements we already have in place. I've stopped spending on just to ensure that the
[1:09:06] funding, now they've sent a Marino's office reached out to FEMA. They said the money would be reimbursed.
[1:09:14] We're just waiting to see that money get reimbursed. So have we spent any money and we're waiting
[1:09:19] Yes, the money. Yes, I mean a little under a million dollars. I don't under a million dollars
[1:09:23] I think this is critical because it's hard for people to change the game after you've
[1:09:30] followed the all of the things that you had to follow high scrutiny as you've indicated
[1:09:37] In the past we have gotten reimbursed, but this is dangerous because
[1:09:41] Had Nick you said wait a minute hold up the county would be on the hook because it's like going to the store
[1:09:48] They said, go on to the mall and buy the outfit and I'll reimburse you.
[1:09:52] And you go to the mall and you buy the outfit.
[1:09:55] And they said, well, where's the reimbursement?
[1:09:56] Well, you know, I changed my mind now.
[1:09:58] We don't spend money on something else.
[1:09:59] Well, now you're out of money that you thought you were going to get reimbursed for.
[1:10:04] So I wanted to highlight that some of these grants are reimbursable grants.
[1:10:09] And that meant a lot of people don't front at the money or we front at the money.
[1:10:13] And if you change the game in the middle,
[1:10:16] You know, that, and you, he breached the contract, then the county, we on the hook, which
[1:10:23] they're not on the hook.
[1:10:25] So I wanted to highlight what you see it, which is very important.
[1:10:28] We haven't had problems in the past, but we didn't have people changing the goalposts and
[1:10:34] changing the rules in a middle.
[1:10:36] Once you get a contract, you usually can take it to the bank and say, I got a contract.
[1:10:41] But now the way that Washington has moved and they have devalued the contract
[1:10:48] So reimbursement is very important glad that you told us about there if there's any others in here
[1:10:54] Mr. Ludo or answer truly that is a reimbursable program that I like to know what we put out and
[1:11:01] What we haven't gotten yet and what might be at risk of you know getting the money and I think you've done the right thing
[1:11:07] we might have to do that with others. We might have already done that, Mr. Ludo. We had to
[1:11:12] ran lightly on the reimbursable plane because we weren't keeping their word on something.
[1:11:18] And just to clarify, we should be okay. It's just a pause while they basically what they've done
[1:11:23] as they've sent some grants all the way to DHS used to go to the state. January would go ahead and
[1:11:29] prove it. It was a less complicated process. Now they're taking some of the grants like the
[1:11:37] to review what we, how we spent the funds and, and, and, and ensure it aligns with the administration's priorities, and then so I don't see any issue with that.
[1:11:48] I'm just waiting to, to ensure, it also gives me an idea of how long are we going to have to wait once the project is finished.
[1:11:55] So again, just being cognizant of the county's financial exposure.
[1:11:59] I just want to appreciate you talking about the county's financial exposure, like you said,
[1:12:05] you don't anticipate any problem, but I didn't anticipate these executive orders, federal
[1:12:09] workers didn't anticipate they were going to lose their jobs.
[1:12:13] So we're in a different time, and I appreciate you moving with caution, caution rather
[1:12:17] because once we put our money out and we hope we're going to get it back, and we don't get
[1:12:22] it back, then that impacts our budgeting as well.
[1:12:26] So I appreciate that, and now like I said, there may be others dealing on a reimbursable
[1:12:31] plan, and I'd like to know who they are.
[1:12:34] And if we need to look into that, I'm sure Mr. Loodle is looking into that already.
[1:12:38] So thank you.
[1:12:39] Thank you, Nick.
[1:12:39] Appreciate you here.
[1:12:40] And lastly, I want to call forward a Megan Guthrie.
[1:12:44] So Megan's budget is smaller than some of the previous speakers.
[1:12:49] However, the vast majority of the budget does come from the federal government.
[1:12:52] And so the work that we are doing related to addiction response, the numbers are
[1:12:56] spending down here in Hamilton County, and so this funding is critical to that work.
[1:13:03] So Megan, could you briefly highlight just a couple of the impacts here?
[1:13:08] So as you mentioned, yeah, we are a small but mighty department.
[1:13:11] I would say about 90% of our funding comes from federal grants.
[1:13:16] So since 2020 of the active grants that we still have, we have $8.5 million funded.
[1:13:22] we have about five million remaining to spend down on those grants. I know Commissioner
[1:13:28] Reese, you would ask, you know, are there any staff that have been hired specifically under federal
[1:13:32] grant funding? That's my entire department. So there's about 15 staff, not including five
[1:13:39] officers that are that are that we can contract with as part of our sub awards for those projects,
[1:13:44] but I would say the biggest program that would be impacted would be the quicker response team
[1:13:49] And that would include things like peer support on our safe services van.
[1:13:54] That's our services program, peer support on the 513 relief bus.
[1:13:58] We've got some proactive outreach and hotspot outreach that we do in our most
[1:14:03] high-risk kind of communities, so that's our holistic outreach for priority people project
[1:14:07] that we do in price hill.
[1:14:09] We've expanded that to district four as well as the downtown district.
[1:14:13] We provide peer support in seven of the court documents, the specialty court documents.
[1:14:19] This would also include our African American outreach team.
[1:14:23] So from 2019 to 2020, we saw a 35% increase in the number of overdose and overdose
[1:14:28] deaths for African Americans in our community.
[1:14:30] And we have since hired a team specifically to do that post overdose response and proactive
[1:14:35] outreach in our community.
[1:14:37] This would include all of our harm reduction, distribution, so in the lock zone, fentanyl
[1:14:41] test strips. Silesane test strips, hygiene kits, really essential things there, as well as
[1:14:48] some of our drug treatment and recovery programs, provide recovery housing for people
[1:14:52] for their first 90 days, as well as transportation. We also provide that.
[1:15:00] Under our QRT grants as well as our drug court grants as well to try to get people to and from their appointments or treatment.
[1:15:07] So those are just a high level of some of the things that would be impacted by our work.
[1:15:12] But again, we also have drug court grants. We have some jail-based programming that we do with the sheriff's office as well as some school-based programming, just to name a few.
[1:15:20] Yeah, just to draw the distinction between the question that was asked in your response.
[1:15:23] So, the question was about folks that have been hired
[1:15:27] to administer the grants, I think.
[1:15:29] Your work is administering the grants,
[1:15:32] but actually doing the work, right?
[1:15:34] You're all the folks that all the programs you just mentioned,
[1:15:37] those staff people are being funded through the federal grants.
[1:15:41] Right, right, okay.
[1:15:42] So, and I apologize for asking you to be,
[1:15:44] it's your entire department that's funded through the federal government.
[1:15:47] So, to have you, has one or two things is not reasonable
[1:15:50] because you, so many of the touch points
[1:15:53] throughout your entire department.
[1:15:55] So thank you for the illumination, the quick response team,
[1:15:58] as everybody knows, a national model that
[1:16:00] started here in Cold Rain Township is critically important
[1:16:02] to get folks into treatment along term recovery.
[1:16:05] So that would be a huge blow for us.
[1:16:08] Commissioner, is any questions for Megan?
[1:16:10] I'm out for Megan, no.
[1:16:11] Yeah, I just wanted to clarify.
[1:16:13] Maybe there was a different question.
[1:16:14] But my question was not the people to get the grant.
[1:16:19] It was the people who we have grants.
[1:16:21] we hire people to implement the grant and so that's definitely what you brought up so that's
[1:16:28] what I was referring to because that affects people that were hired to administer and if you
[1:16:34] get approved for a grant and you say well now I've got to I'm going to have these people in the
[1:16:39] grant you say I'm going to have these people hired you hired them and now Washington is saying
[1:16:44] we don't know we in limbo we got to think about it the meantime we've hired people and
[1:16:50] have to pay them and then they're in limbo and am I going to have a job? What are we going
[1:16:54] to do? I don't think it's right if you're another example of going after the grants being
[1:17:02] competitive and then we're ready to help the people but now Washington is we don't know if
[1:17:09] they're going to pick up the phone and change their minds. So I just wanted to make sure
[1:17:14] We highlighted that and I concur what will say this would impact a lot of people's lives.
[1:17:22] Thank you, Megan.
[1:17:23] All right, so I just want to also recognize in case there are questions for the other
[1:17:27] departments and organizations that are here.
[1:17:29] We also have in the room environmental services, facilities, JV court, landing and development
[1:17:34] probation, public defender in the sheriff's office.
[1:17:37] So commissioners, if there are any questions for any of the impacts in those different categories,
[1:17:43] happily entertain, you know, calling some folks up with some expertise or, you know, it's all
[1:17:49] highlighted in the Anson, I don't know where Anson went, but thank you. The report you provided,
[1:17:54] the first report you provided was more of a high level, the second report you provided was detailed
[1:18:00] each and every one of your departments, the impacts to your departments, the dollar amounts
[1:18:06] associated with that. So it is very thorough. I'm grateful for that that the chart is like a high
[1:18:11] And then you dig in to each and every one of them.
[1:18:14] So, thank you, Wolfart, for participating in this really important exercise that we need to go through to understand what we're talking about here when it comes to federal funding.
[1:18:23] So, commissioners, is there anything else before we move on to that?
[1:18:27] Yeah, go ahead.
[1:18:27] What are you moving on to?
[1:18:28] They're the next item.
[1:18:29] Yeah, definitely.
[1:18:30] I have a couple of comments.
[1:18:32] And I just want people to know in the room that this is not a discussion of gloom and doom.
[1:18:37] But this is still dealing with reality.
[1:18:42] And so I also want to make a very clear
[1:18:44] that the county budget currently is in good shape.
[1:18:49] We're doing well, but we're being proactive.
[1:18:53] We're busy being proactive.
[1:18:55] And we believe I know my eyes are wide open.
[1:18:59] We may be hit by something on the side or whatever
[1:19:03] that we didn't see coming, but we're as a board
[1:19:06] being very proactive. If we have to slow walk, in other words, stop some of our projects,
[1:19:13] or stop some of our new initiatives, I will do so. I just want to let you know that right
[1:19:20] now we're looking okay, but we don't know what's coming down the pike. And lastly, I want
[1:19:27] to encourage all of us that if you see anything on the emails like I got CCAO is doing a great
[1:19:34] given us information of the legislature and how it's going.
[1:19:38] So, as I get it, I'll follow it out to DDS or JFS,
[1:19:42] or whoever else I can think of.
[1:19:44] So, if you're getting communication from Washington,
[1:19:49] pass it on, share it so we can all be armed and dangerous.
[1:19:53] Okay, so we have to be ready to move when we have to move.
[1:19:57] But right now, as a commissioner,
[1:19:59] I'm staying on top of as much stuff as I can
[1:20:02] to make sure we're not hit by a foul ball, I guess I would say, so I just want to thank all of you
[1:20:09] for coming, I appreciate your input, and I will be working very hard to do what I can do to try
[1:20:16] to advocate and lobby to maintain the money that you have. So we're looking, I'm looking very closely
[1:20:24] at what we can do, so thank you for coming. Thank you, Commissioner Reese. Yes, I want to thank
[1:20:30] Everyone who is here for what you do on a day-to-day basis, you are on the ground, your people are on the ground,
[1:20:37] helping citizens of Hamilton County, and that's what makes us one Hamilton County.
[1:20:44] Today was very important because our board, we have been physically responsible. We, uh,
[1:20:51] balance our budget is structurally balanced. However, in this budget, we had grants that were approved
[1:20:58] that we had competed for different departments, different entities here.
[1:21:03] We did our part, you did it the right way.
[1:21:06] And then you got a response from the federal government saying,
[1:21:10] you have the one the award, get ready to go.
[1:21:14] Some have said, go ahead, it's a reimbursement.
[1:21:17] Go ahead, start spending money because we are going to give you your money back.
[1:21:22] It is sad in a day and time when the federal government, when they send you your word,
[1:21:28] you can't even stand on that word.
[1:21:30] That was the most guaranteed type of contract you could ever get.
[1:21:36] I want to also remind people that we do pay taxes.
[1:21:40] And our taxes just went up to Washington.
[1:21:43] And all we're saying is, wait a minute, Washington.
[1:21:46] We've got to get our fair share.
[1:21:47] We've got to get something down here to help people with disabilities.
[1:21:50] We've got to get something down here to invest in the infrastructure and the roads.
[1:21:54] We've got to get something down here.
[1:21:55] So we have a Ohio River flood that we had.
[1:21:59] We can get it cleaned up.
[1:22:02] We've got to be down here and be able to invest in different neighborhoods.
[1:22:06] So people can buy a home.
[1:22:08] We have to be able to have programs.
[1:22:10] So grandma and grandpa can hold on to their home.
[1:22:12] We have to do these things.
[1:22:14] And that is what we're doing.
[1:22:16] This is not a big.
[1:22:17] This is not a handout.
[1:22:19] This is our money coming back home to be reinvested to help the citizens
[1:22:25] of our community. We also need to help those that are vulnerable. The snap benefits. They're
[1:22:31] going to need to be able to get food. The food costs are still up high and they still got
[1:22:35] to be able to buy something. We're trying to get people from homelessness to be able to have
[1:22:40] their own home. And we're being very creative. We did a heck of a job with the American Rescue
[1:22:46] Money. We did helping people right now and then we came with something investing in the future.
[1:22:51] But when you start
[1:22:53] Chip it away at what was already lean
[1:22:58] It makes it very difficult and it makes it very difficult and it makes it very difficult when every day you're changing the rules
[1:23:06] And it's hard to keep up when you're changing the rules and people out here trying to survive
[1:23:12] So today was very important
[1:23:14] for us and for Hamleton County because we were able now to put our arms around what money
[1:23:22] comes in from federal government what is a pass through what is a reimbursement what is guaranteed
[1:23:30] what is still out there at risk so that we could get our hands around it as things are moving
[1:23:36] fast and I know it really was helpful to me so it's a truly thank you very much Mr. Ludo thank you
[1:23:43] much and I want you to know that our administration, we got to be on top of it, because this
[1:23:50] thing is moving so fast. It's affecting safety, shares the apartment, keeping the county safe,
[1:23:57] but when you cut the money, it's hard. We want to keep ourselves safe. So safety, vitality,
[1:24:04] future, right now is all at risk. And I think this is very good now. Now we have a base of
[1:24:13] to where everything is and now we've got to keep our eyes as you said it could change.
[1:24:18] We can go to bed tonight and they'll run and get that impact and write some executive
[1:24:24] order that could change the game.
[1:24:27] So thank you for this presentation.
[1:24:30] Thank you all for being here and know that we're all in this together.
[1:24:34] We hope the information that we're providing to you also could help you see where everything
[1:24:39] is and we're we're trying to go and we can all be on the same page. So I think this was excellent.
[1:24:46] We've got more to come, but at least we're equipped with the information and we'll have updates
[1:24:53] as Mr. Ludo and his team. I know we'll continue to keep us updated. Thank you. Thank you commissioners
[1:25:02] and just on that note, I do want to thank Hanson. This was a lot of work to pull together.
[1:25:07] uh... so i want to thank you for all of his uh... hard work and in doing so
[1:25:11] i want to thank all the departments who were
[1:25:13] uh... very cooperative and uh... in terms of putting this this report together
[1:25:17] uh... as was just indicated we will follow up with the board this will as
[1:25:22] antson said this will not be the the last we look at this will continue to stay in touch
[1:25:26] with the departments make sure that on a
[1:25:29] on an emergent basis we were following up with things that may happen
[1:25:33] uh... as commissioner reset tomorrow as well as planning some
[1:25:36] more regular touch points with the board on this issue down the road so the of course this year we have a good handle on how this issue is playing out.
[1:25:47] I do just very very quickly want to thank as the commissioners have all the people the individuals who are here today.
[1:25:54] Certainly all the people that are on the front lines programmatically, but a little bit of a special shout out to all those folks.
[1:26:01] whether they're in the room or not, they're involved with the finances of these federal grants,
[1:26:07] and there's one thing to apply for the grants is another thing to track the grant and monitor it
[1:26:11] and keep the finances of it working. It's hard work, it's complicated work, it's a very unique skill set,
[1:26:17] but without the acumen of those individuals, these benefits don't make it to the street, these benefits don't
[1:26:22] happen in our community. So anyone who's out there that's involved with the financial or the grant-related
[1:26:29] And Nusa, these I just want to let them know that there are services are very much appreciated.
[1:26:34] Yes, we appreciate the financial people.
[1:26:36] In addition to the people on the ground, yes, of course, of course, of course, of course.
[1:26:40] Sometimes we do lose track, so we'll look forward to ongoing updates as things change at the federal level.
[1:26:47] Hopefully we won't get any, but you never know and so that's what we're preparing for and we need to have the information in front of us.
[1:26:53] And a couple other things we do have budget meeting coming up.
[1:26:59] So obviously all of this potentially impacts the budget, the county budget, it's a tight
[1:27:04] budget this year.
[1:27:05] And so we will be keeping an eye on the impacts to our budget in addition to the budgets
[1:27:12] of each and every department.
[1:27:13] And the other thing I know, Nick, I think mentioned this, some of us have gone and lobbied
[1:27:19] to our federal representatives to make sure that they too are in the loop,
[1:27:23] related to the impacts to Hamilton County, and so, and so, and so I'm hopeful that this
[1:27:28] report that you have put together along with everybody else in the room will go out to
[1:27:32] our federal representatives, the House side and the Senate side are lobbyists to make sure
[1:27:37] that they too understand what the impacts are and will be part of our effort to keep these
[1:27:42] dollars here in this community to the benefit of the citizens. So, I just want to put that out
[1:27:46] there. So, thank you all. You're welcome to say you don't have to. We won't hold it against you.
[1:27:51] Although our next presentation is, it folds right into this presentation.
[1:27:56] So it's a federal funding discussion from the Human Services Chamber.
[1:28:00] Mike Maraski is here to represent the chamber.
[1:28:03] Mike I'll ask you to give just a really brief overview of the Human Services Chamber.
[1:28:07] I'll let everybody get out of here for it.
[1:28:09] And then the impacts to your members.
[1:28:11] For sure.
[1:28:12] Thank you all for being.
[1:28:12] Most of these people are in June for me anyway.
[1:28:14] They know what I'm going to say.
[1:28:19] I will let you know, though, as they recovering elected official.
[1:28:22] I know to make this free with us.
[1:28:24] I know the assignment.
[1:28:28] Totally an hour and a half.
[1:28:29] All
[1:28:32] right.
[1:28:34] Thank you.
[1:28:36] So I have a presentation.
[1:28:38] I am going to skip through some of it because I know you have really important work to do.
[1:28:44] We got to get up there because that's an air.
[1:28:45] It's better.
[1:28:46] It was freaking me out in my face up there.
[1:28:48] us presentry house vice president doing this commissioner east mr.
[1:28:52] room. That was an awesome presentation already sent it to the hundred plus member
[1:28:57] human services chamber with the breakdown of the money and if this wasn't part of the
[1:29:02] presentation ten minutes ago but it is now if I may appoint a personal privilege for
[1:29:07] our virtual dive tie-hard even in recovery. Well I'll let you know if you have over
[1:29:12] steps your bans. Please, I need guardrails. It is extraordinarily meaningful to my members
[1:29:20] on the nonprofit sector. Human services chamber again, we're an advocacy based member agency
[1:29:26] representing over a hundred nonprofits in the county. Many of whom most of whom receive the
[1:29:32] levy dollars from here, a lot of whom work in tandem with the county, like the 30 million that
[1:29:36] straight to strategies and homelessness that then supplements, you know, dollars with y'all.
[1:29:42] It's been really hard for our folks and I'm going to go through that quickly,
[1:29:46] but it's been doubly hard because, and I respect this, and all seriousness,
[1:29:51] is somebody who was overseeing a billion dollar budget for a while in the public sector.
[1:29:56] It's extra hard when you can't get...
[1:30:00] Actual information from municipal leaders. And the state government is the state government. I'll leave that alone. And so it's meaningful to have numbers. It's my point. So thank you.
[1:30:11] And Mr. Ludo, Mr. Chair, thank you so much. He finally left. I'm out here. It's really helpful. So we can go ahead to the next one. I can do it. I was wondering.
[1:30:23] health there.
[1:30:25] My name is Mike Moroski.
[1:30:26] If you don't know me on the Human Services Chamber Executive Director.
[1:30:30] And the priorities of our Chamber that are voted upon by members, you can see on the
[1:30:34] screen housing, older adults, disability, new Americans, mental health, education, workforce,
[1:30:40] local government, that's largely funding issues and then policy.
[1:30:44] Mirror a lot of what we already heard today.
[1:30:47] The cuts in health and human services, the 10,000 folks who are like go, plus the 10,000
[1:30:53] who are bought out. I think it's notable that of those 20,000, each one of them comes with
[1:30:57] like 1.6 contractors. So 60,000 jobs lost. It's starting to impact some of the, I heard
[1:31:05] a lot of questions that I'm going to try to answer as I go from Commissioner Reaster
[1:31:09] Gardening. Folks with disability, independent salines who used to be center for independent
[1:31:13] living options. A lot of their, they promote independent living for adults for disabilities.
[1:31:20] a lot of the folks who used to work in that department are now gone.
[1:31:24] And so while nothing has necessarily changed yet, Mr. Luton, I've talked with a lot of you
[1:31:30] about this.
[1:31:31] The hardest part about this is the confusion.
[1:31:33] And of course, it's being so non-purpose and it's hard to relay the dire need in our sector
[1:31:41] who, at least in our opinion, is part and parcel of your sector, providing basic services
[1:31:45] that we heard a lot about.
[1:31:46] Nothing has maybe happened yet, but trying to plan for it on the horizon has been difficult.
[1:31:52] Particularly regarding the health and human services in the area of disability.
[1:31:56] So all I want to say today, honestly, we don't have an ask of you.
[1:31:58] We know that the money is hard.
[1:32:01] I've been working with our 100 plus membership for about two months on how we can best advocate as a sector as one.
[1:32:07] The business community, if I may, does it good job with that? They often come as one.
[1:32:11] We don't always do the best job with that, but we want to do that and we want to come as one and tell you that.
[1:32:16] We do believe we're in this together.
[1:32:18] We do believe we extend government reach
[1:32:20] by serving the most under-resource residents
[1:32:22] efficiently with whether it's community-based
[1:32:25] neighborhood-based nonprofit-second-reach people
[1:32:27] that government may not be able to.
[1:32:29] We want you to know that we are here as we reimagine
[1:32:32] how to move forward.
[1:32:34] So the direct ask of the Human Services Chamber was
[1:32:37] what is the current reality in our sector?
[1:32:41] I can give you numbers, the potential
[1:32:43] doing gloom numbers that Vice President was referencing the trillion dollar numbers that are hard
[1:32:47] to wrap our brains around. I am keeping track of the potential loss of all our members that
[1:32:52] again, a lot of them were in the room, DDS as a member as well and job and family services.
[1:32:57] There are associate members to different track. We don't need to get in all that. The only difference is
[1:33:01] they don't have a vote on our policy priorities. But speaking for Greg Johnson at CMHA and he said
[1:33:06] I can. It's helpful for him to be in our housing committee to hear of issues before they might arise elsewhere.
[1:33:13] this is the best list I could come up with. It's the in all amounts to confusion, you know,
[1:33:19] my Ricosis Jackson at Immigration Refugee Law Center is on my board and she'll get an order to
[1:33:25] stop representing undocumented children who are residents of the United States and then four days later
[1:33:32] she's told that she can again. She's told $500,000 is taken away and people scramble
[1:33:41] Foundations call the human services chamber how can we help and then she's told the money is there again
[1:33:45] things that don't make the news
[1:33:48] The the immigration folks in DC keep changing the paperwork
[1:33:53] things like
[1:33:54] Might seem little but like check your gender for example and
[1:33:58] So then they scramble at IRLC and they change everything and tell everyone and then the next day
[1:34:03] They come back with something different
[1:34:05] So that's a difficult the housing discrimination piece housing opportunities
[1:34:10] made equal on you may have seen the third of their budget was taken away by my
[1:34:16] flater. I say, well, you can do it again. And if I may, you know, the one thing
[1:34:20] the folks who have the keys to the kingdom now are really, really good at is doing
[1:34:25] things regardless if they're legal or not and getting what they want, regardless if
[1:34:30] it's legal or not. And a lot of the adverse impacts are a sector that's happening.
[1:34:36] It is happening because things are held up in court, whether it's board members of our
[1:34:40] agencies that column self-imposed mandates, I'm going to steal it from Commissionaries.
[1:34:45] So, you know, say, we can't have DEI statements on our website.
[1:34:49] Well, that's not true, but maybe boards don't know that.
[1:34:53] And so we're doing a lot of educating a boards.
[1:34:55] I'm working with pro bono partnership because it's a lot more powerful when an attorney from
[1:34:59] Frostbrown Todd gives an opinion versus Mike Moroski.
[1:35:03] So I'm trying to, you know, so our, my EVs can work with their boards.
[1:35:06] There's no posting of anticipated or the typical grant opportunities.
[1:35:12] The HHS we already talked about, and then recently, and this didn't come up today, and
[1:35:16] I assume folks know it, but whatever Mr. Musk's job is, and whatever the doge is, they
[1:35:24] took over a grant stock up, the administration of grants stock up, health and human services
[1:35:29] typically did that.
[1:35:31] And again, all of the grants have been said a number of times that my members receive are
[1:35:36] reimbursement based.
[1:35:38] Tansible example, YWCA, the only
[1:35:40] battered women's shelter in the county.
[1:35:42] They're bleeding money already.
[1:35:43] Regardless, again, if any of this is legal,
[1:35:46] because they're not getting reimbursed.
[1:35:48] And so, Raquel Howard Smith, who's my vice president,
[1:35:50] and also the CEO over there, is working on you.
[1:35:53] What is the feasibility of 100% privately funded shelter?
[1:35:57] But this just happened at the end of last week.
[1:35:59] And who knows, again, the answer to most questions,
[1:36:03] We don't know, but it doesn't feel good.
[1:36:06] The lack of knowledge about the fate of CDVG,
[1:36:08] TAN of its center.
[1:36:09] Thank you so much for this presentation.
[1:36:10] I already feel better about that one.
[1:36:13] So it's difficult to budget.
[1:36:15] So I'll speed through the rest.
[1:36:23] These are the four big buckets.
[1:36:25] I got to give a shout out to Blue Cardinal Village
[1:36:27] and Lauren Warley and Charlie Gerhard
[1:36:29] who've been working with my debilitating
[1:36:31] hold a part brain to try to dial down on what is it that we want to convey to leaders like
[1:36:37] y'all or the business community. It's these four things. We believe it sounds like y'all do
[1:36:42] two based on what I just listened to the past hour and a half. We help provide essential support,
[1:36:46] economic fuel, engagement, and trust, and empowerment for systems. That's a fancy way of saying
[1:36:52] addressing upstream items, but I needed a fourth E. As a former English teacher, I don't know if it's
[1:36:59] that means addressing upstream items that made me difficult for government.
[1:37:04] Again, I say this with great humility, having been part of a massive system that self perpetuates in the public school district.
[1:37:11] So it can be hard.
[1:37:12] I won't go through all this. You all know this.
[1:37:14] I do want to get a shout out. It's crossly still here. He's not.
[1:37:18] So I work with Nick Crossley in the county.
[1:37:20] I was elected chair. The community organizations active in disaster, not because I know anything about disaster relief.
[1:37:25] But I think my value at is access to the agencies and so we work in partnership with y'all
[1:37:31] When I was not here, but Gina Marsh before me, of course, the distributing the PPEs
[1:37:38] Also, you know, I think a good example of this essential support
[1:37:41] I wanted to give it again to shout out to the community-based agencies
[1:37:44] I think community matters in lower-price health. I can help deliver, you know, services quickly
[1:37:50] efficiently. I'm not going to show my fancy video about send it to you. The economic fuel
[1:37:55] piece, I think this is significant. We had $2.9 billion impact on the locally economy. That's
[1:38:01] only 312 agencies. I wrote in a leadership council and one source for this and a Brad Evans
[1:38:08] over the director research at UC and I we just spoke yesterday and we're actually going to be
[1:38:19] amplify your dollars. So the dollars we've been talking about all day that are now up for
[1:38:24] who knows. Say $1 goes to you, that's the community matters again. What does that then turn into
[1:38:30] in the community? As a way to show how we're all sort of in this together. And so Brad and I are going to
[1:38:35] start working on that soon. And we're actually presenting on August, April 23rd about this impact report.
[1:38:44] Over view though, again, you all have copies of this and you've had a long meeting already.
[1:38:48] So many used to sit in seven hour meetings where we'll get you out of here in time.
[1:38:53] But just a brief overview of the 312 that are in the report.
[1:38:56] Again, these are all services that county helps us provide.
[1:39:02] But these are the significant numbers I think for the economic fuel piece.
[1:39:05] And when I got with UCF log, I've long believed asking the right question to be a powerful advocacy tool.
[1:39:10] And I wanted more than the 2.9 billion.
[1:39:12] I wanted to talk for the street speak.
[1:39:15] And so I wanted earnings tax numbers.
[1:39:17] And this is just our employees, this is to say nothing of the people our agencies in concert with
[1:39:22] levy dollars in y'all in public money help get to self-sustainable places so that they're
[1:39:27] participate in the time.
[1:39:28] This is just our employees significant numbers engage even in trust we want to remind you I don't
[1:39:38] think we need to again after this presentation here today and thank you again for the invite.
[1:39:43] I didn't know what the content was going to be before this presentation, but it flowed perfectly
[1:39:48] just like Mr. Ludo and I planned.
[1:39:52] It works great.
[1:39:54] You know, we try to build trust between public and local government to create more engaged
[1:39:59] connected neighborhoods, which we're going to need, because something, every impact is happening.
[1:40:04] I'll say it if no one else wants to see on Liberty, too, because my members have said
[1:40:07] I can't, I mean, things aren't going to get harder, and we are going to have to reimagine
[1:40:11] How we've done things in the past and we certainly will need your help. You know, there's no private money available
[1:40:16] That could cover even a tenth of
[1:40:20] Projected financial loss in our sector. So
[1:40:24] Last one
[1:40:25] Yeah, this is the only the one I added the empower if you have a better E please let me know Kevin Finciller
[1:40:31] Smart of the mute being text me later, but uh, you know, we partner with the city
[1:40:36] You know most all the resource coordinators at CPS are our members every resource coordinator
[1:40:41] our members. The levy dollars coming to us, the city in some ways. So we're here. We want to help
[1:40:49] as we figure out how this works. I don't necessarily have an ask like I said and we're kicking
[1:40:55] around ideas in the Human Services Chamber, shared services with the nonprofit sector. That's
[1:40:59] radical. I don't know. But we wanted to see Hamilton County thrive and at the least
[1:41:06] protected from not becoming a bad place to live. So thanks again for the time. I can't take
[1:41:11] questions. I do have specific numbers of potential loss, but I didn't feel like that was probably necessary appropriate right now.
[1:41:18] Thank you. And thank you to some of your members who are in the room.
[1:41:21] Appreciate the attendance and the our ability to ask questions of you.
[1:41:25] So we, too, have talked about this whiplash that's coming from the federal government where something happens one day.
[1:41:30] Then the next day it changes in the next day.
[1:41:32] And it's destabilizing for private enterprise, it's destabilizing for nonprofits and destabilizing for government.
[1:41:42] When we count on sources of funding that have been promised and then taken back against.
[1:41:47] So we share that the head spinning whiplash that you have encountered as well, the same kind of thing.
[1:41:55] But I think it's helpful to have your presentation after the county president.
[1:42:00] And because now you've provided a broader landscape for what we're talking about because it's not only county agencies that are impacted by potential cuts, but rather all of the nonprofits that you represent and over a hundred years you say, but they too are delivering these essential services to the community.
[1:42:18] So I think it helps us paint this broad picture of what we're looking at and really what the impacts are of the federal dollars and how they are helping people in this community in all these different ways that that you've outlined.
[1:42:30] And so I appreciate that, and we're in partnership with so many of your members.
[1:42:34] So many.
[1:42:35] Yeah.
[1:42:35] We're really, really grateful for that.
[1:42:36] We are a partnership rich in Hamilton County.
[1:42:39] Not everybody can brag.
[1:42:41] The way we do, but man, are we lucky if we have so many really wonderful organizations.
[1:42:46] But I want to ask you one question.
[1:42:49] You mentioned at the end, but you also mentioned in the middle of what you were saying.
[1:42:53] So work cuts to come, or rather funding to be either drawn back or not coming in the future.
[1:42:59] What have you heard from your members?
[1:43:02] You mentioned the YWN Raquel, Howard Smith talking about privately funding, a shelter.
[1:43:09] I mean, what is the capacity of your membership to bring in dollars to replace federal dollars?
[1:43:18] I mean, you said at the end, if not near to the extent that you're getting federal dollars right now.
[1:43:23] I mean, it's just, in beyond that, you've got 100 agencies and my suspicion is that
[1:43:28] people that donate to those organizations donate to more than one at a time, right? So that's going
[1:43:35] to dry up. So what are you hearing from folks? So yeah, and to paint the picture a little more
[1:43:40] even bleakly, not that we need to maybe, but if you took every sense of every private community
[1:43:45] foundation in the entire country and put it in one pot, it would cover 79 days of the federal
[1:43:51] budget. That's how little money there is to, which is why we're not necessarily going after that
[1:43:58] piece. So, you know, since he's, you know, here, you know, Kevin, it's starting to send homelessness.
[1:44:05] We're talking 32 million dollars. Now, this is the ultimate 100% of what these folks in DC want.
[1:44:11] Okay? So this is like, so we're talking 32 million, 90 plus percent of the budget, 12,000
[1:44:19] individuals affected a year. It's CMHA to keep it to housing 26 million in public housing subsidy,
[1:44:27] 100 million in half funding, 4 million in admin, so you all send 90% of the budget, which would
[1:44:32] affect 18,000 people, you're I seem so that might be a little bit overlap. And then other members
[1:44:39] like, you know, found House Stacy Burge, who works with Kevin, you know, the 3 million. I so I don't
[1:44:46] duplicate found village, you know, Katie working with the kids in foster care, we're talking
[1:44:52] to $200,000 community matters, $200,000,000 Council on Aging.
[1:45:00] 10.8 million dollars. So again, these are all like the ultimate doom and gloom, and I'm keeping track of these. And I have a buy advocacy area, and I'm working with the Northern Kentucky safety net alliance.
[1:45:14] they have you see so different over there we don't know you again but just so I'm going
[1:45:18] to their meetings and air in their director is preview what we're talking about this
[1:45:22] we have a better regional idea especially when we talk to the business chamber folks like
[1:45:26] that and then Alicia Kittner at our 12 they're not members but again trying to have a more
[1:45:32] holistic picture so those are some numbers to throw out and again it's it's a hard thing
[1:45:40] We convey not to y'all, but it's a hard thing to convey to business leaders some foundation
[1:45:45] folks because everybody, the web is no complex so the money comes to you, goes to our
[1:45:51] members and then the people we serve are on TANF, GDG and go through Ohio and means jobs
[1:45:54] and it's, you word it as a whiplash, I say it's like a daily attack on our limbic systems
[1:45:59] which again is the goal and so I have to take an opportunity to say you know we've been really
[1:46:08] received with our advocacy and again, I can't thank y'all enough for having us here.
[1:46:12] You know, what we need, we need the business community to say something.
[1:46:16] You know, because at the end of the day, if you mess with our sector, even a thousand
[1:46:20] of what they're talking about, you can throw counties and tire operating in, general
[1:46:24] fund at basic services, and it's going to look like a different place.
[1:46:28] And so, I'll also come to the Reddy Cincinnati, which is great, and trying to get
[1:46:36] And paradigm shift is a kind of a melodramatic thing, but it does feel like things are shifting and we're grateful that we have a meetable leaders like y'all to have these conversations because the money's not going to be there
[1:46:48] So rethinking how we administer and I guess and we're here to help
[1:46:52] My value at is I know the smart people so it's not me, but I can you we can you know help connect everything
[1:46:58] Well, it's encouraging to know that you're engaging the private side, right?
[1:47:01] So you are right that I don't think there's always an understanding of if your systems
[1:47:08] don't have the ability to provide the services, if the county systems don't have the
[1:47:12] ability to press sort of people are going to know it, right, that changes how we live
[1:47:18] here and the impact to all these folks and so it's really important to engage.
[1:47:22] So thank you for that work and please call on us to advocate with you as you engage with
[1:47:28] the private sector because it will be an important conversation if these dollars and
[1:47:31] call them the partnership dollars and the federal government.
[1:47:34] Currently, they've always been partnerships from the federal government.
[1:47:37] It's just that now they're potentially at risk and we need to understand this
[1:47:41] impact.
[1:47:42] So thank you for being here.
[1:47:44] I really appreciate it.
[1:47:46] Commissioner Semorodinus.
[1:47:47] Thank you for your presentation.
[1:47:50] I would say about a month ago, I gave a presentation as a release to nonprofits and I might
[1:47:55] send you the information that I share and it's no doubt about it.
[1:47:59] will be dramatically impacted all our nonprofits.
[1:48:04] And I also brought up at that time about if we don't have it, we have to go to the private
[1:48:09] sector.
[1:48:10] And so there are many, and I talked about the research we may have to do.
[1:48:14] I know a couple private entities at Boys and Girls Club is very hard, so you reach out
[1:48:20] to them.
[1:48:21] Council on Aging, you reach out.
[1:48:22] And I know Jeff, I've asked Jeff about looking into what private entities and it's gonna take
[1:48:28] of them. And not that they necessarily want to, but they'll be proud that they help to make
[1:48:35] sure that this agency did not fall or falters. So I talked about that about a month ago,
[1:48:40] so we're on the same, we're thinking the same way, that's scary. But anyway. But I decided as things
[1:48:49] changed in Washington and as things around this change, stop trying to make sense out of nonsense.
[1:48:57] And I realize that I have to be flatfooted and have a foundation flexible, but flatfooted and prepare for change, expect change.
[1:49:08] Well, how do you deal with change when you don't know which way it's common?
[1:49:11] As you said, whiplash, so that's what we're going to have to do, but what we have to make sure we don't do is not get stressed out,
[1:49:20] because we're not productive and continue to lead like we're doing up here and like you're
[1:49:25] doing and like Kevin is doing, that we need to continue to lead and we need to reach out
[1:49:30] and no matter how much it hurts to ask some of our billionaires to help the people here
[1:49:37] we're going to have to do it.
[1:49:38] So thank you so much for your presentation.
[1:49:41] Thank you Vice President, I'm not surprised with your social work background that you get it.
[1:49:46] If I may, with the billionaires, the millionaires, 100% yes, and I'll just say what I've
[1:49:51] said publicly, a number of times are ready to some foundation heads that I said, how can
[1:49:55] we maximize our impact?
[1:49:58] And they're, of course, I'd all dollars, right?
[1:50:00] I'll give you a way to do without spending any money.
[1:50:04] Talk to those people that you're in the room with.
[1:50:07] Because at the end of the day, and again, I can say this is an advocacy-based agency
[1:50:12] wrap, the folks making these decisions don't even particularly like the folks my agency
[1:50:20] serve and are going out of their way to hurt them. As such, they're not going to listen
[1:50:26] to the people running agencies that are trying to help them. They probably may not even listen
[1:50:30] to y'all or the city or anybody, but they will listen to those people. And that's how that's
[1:50:37] So I tell you folks, you go to the cocktail parties, I don't have to say something, they need
[1:50:43] to say something.
[1:50:44] I imagine the folks that made all that money or smart people in our city, and they have
[1:50:49] to know that if you keep chipping away at this stuff, Reddy's going to have a heck of a time
[1:50:55] bringing jobs here.
[1:50:57] Thank you.
[1:50:58] Thank you, Commissioner.
[1:50:59] Commissioner Reese, I just want to thank you for your work, Mike, and all of the agencies
[1:51:07] that you represent. The word change has been brought up several times, just not in this moment,
[1:51:16] but all over. And the trajectory is changing. A couple things that have come out of it. One
[1:51:24] is we had a presentation today where you got the information, the people watching out the
[1:51:29] information, we got the information. Hopefully we can get it online so people can see it in real
[1:51:35] time, the things are changing, because it's totally sad. By the time we put this print, it probably
[1:51:44] was something else. So we want to have a portal that we can all see and they can be changed
[1:51:50] as we're going. And people can see it at real time. But one of the good things that happened
[1:51:55] out of this is that we now have our arms round. How much money are we really talking about?
[1:51:59] that comes through Hamilton County,
[1:52:01] that comes through our areas that we're over
[1:52:05] that we oversee and what that impact is.
[1:52:09] So I thought that was positive.
[1:52:10] The other thing is I think, as you've indicated,
[1:52:15] we've got to get the private sector to step up.
[1:52:18] Now, there'll be some this step up willingly.
[1:52:22] There will be others that will not step up.
[1:52:26] And I just think as we look at our policies
[1:52:29] and move forward something I want to look at is that we've got the leverage things, everything
[1:52:33] we do. So we have to come and vote on something, whether it's a big project, everybody,
[1:52:40] I want this, I want that and they say, well, the business community wants it. Well, we've
[1:52:45] got to look at it and see a metrics. And I think we owe it to the taxpayers if we're going to
[1:52:56] payers funds or use taxpayer debt services because really to tax payers have the debt.
[1:53:03] Then we've got to be a little more bolder and try to leverage those major things that
[1:53:10] come.
[1:53:10] We just can't do one-offs and say, let's get to the next thing.
[1:53:14] We've got to look at this thing to totality because when we take on a debt, grandma and
[1:53:22] Her grandkids are the ones that's taken on this particular debt.
[1:53:29] We talk about right now, you know, obviously the hot topic is the stadium, pay course stadium,
[1:53:36] well, I mean, I wasn't even in politics when they signed the lease.
[1:53:40] And now I'm tangled up along with my colleagues who were not commissioners at that time.
[1:53:46] They did a 20-something year deal.
[1:53:48] They didn't do a 20-minute deal.
[1:53:50] So, I think when we're looking at these things, I would ask Mr. Ludo and the administration
[1:53:56] is Washington has changed. The world is changing. We got this look at our stuff, too.
[1:54:04] And say, wait a minute, we only, who would are our tools? We got tax breaks, we've got debt
[1:54:10] service, we've got restricted and non-restricted, we've got tax, let me, what do we have and
[1:54:17] How do we make what we are asking the people to do, make a dollar out of 15 cents?
[1:54:23] And looking at where we put our money, we put our money in banking.
[1:54:27] And I know we had to vote on it when I first got here, I don't know, so many years.
[1:54:31] But as we work with the auditor, I don't want to put our money in no bank.
[1:54:35] This is not for the citizens of able to count it.
[1:54:38] Why would I take their money and put it in a bank that they can't even go get a loan?
[1:54:43] or put it in a bank that's not speaking out that doesn't care about them because we
[1:54:49] collect diverse tax money and it's amazing that today is the only day we're
[1:54:54] equal all men up and saying everybody we don't have to handle diversity and they
[1:55:00] don't do the DIY money I mean I know discount for the idea I had to pay everybody
[1:55:05] else had to pay they didn't have a problem taking the so-called DIY money you know
[1:55:10] I don't go with acronyms because I'm bigger than a acronyms.
[1:55:14] I'm when you're a child of God, we're bigger than acronyms, but they put a acronyms on us,
[1:55:18] but you took the money, and I went to my taxes, they just said, wait a minute, Rhys.
[1:55:24] You're a woman, you don't have to pay.
[1:55:27] In a minute, you're happy to get American, we're not going to take your money.
[1:55:31] Nobody stopped it, took my money, and everybody else's money.
[1:55:35] Oh, you in the wheelchair, we're not going to take your money.
[1:55:37] It's a garbism. Today, and then tomorrow, we back to saying that we're not going to
[1:55:44] help American people. So what I wanted to say to you is that the silos are down. We can't
[1:55:53] work in silos, and that we have a lot of companies that do good things, and there's some
[1:56:00] out there that's got some more money that can be doing a whole lot more. And I like to, you know,
[1:56:07] Everybody get a job.
[1:56:08] Man, the business community wanted it.
[1:56:10] I want to get the job of what the business community do to help us and some have and those
[1:56:15] who have, I want to highlight them and those who have it, they may not want to come up
[1:56:21] on a six-floor because we are not in a position that just gives and the people we are representing
[1:56:28] their everyday taxpayer is out here on a shoe string trying to survive.
[1:56:35] The last thing you talked about is your board training, and I appreciate that because what
[1:56:39] we see a trend of, there's a signing over the executive order, and then 30 days later,
[1:56:46] it's not what they see it, and you can't keep up.
[1:56:50] And some people, as soon as they hear something, they run and take away.
[1:56:55] Maybe there do need to be a 30-day grace period to see if this thing is still happening,
[1:57:00] so I'm glad you're doing the training.
[1:57:02] But the last thing I want to say is that they also are some people who never do it want to
[1:57:08] Never do it want to be inclusive
[1:57:10] Never do it want to help the seniors and help the veterans and but they were hiding
[1:57:17] It couldn't they was hiding and
[1:57:20] Because of our policies
[1:57:22] You really couldn't hide in this
[1:57:25] government that we're in right now two hundred thirty four years
[1:57:29] go, you know, we couldn't be in this bill. I couldn't be in this bill. And we came to say,
[1:57:35] hey, we're going to shake it up because we collect diverse tax money and we got to support
[1:57:40] everybody. But there's some people who may have been inclusive because it was the popular. It was
[1:57:48] a fact. Some people never wanted to do anything. And now they got an excuse. Everything I'm going
[1:57:56] say is not coming from the guy up in Washington. Some of the stuff people doing on the
[1:58:03] old and hiding behind will he be the he didn't send you I just see your name on that
[1:58:07] executive order. So I'm glad that you're figuring out who are the people that believe in
[1:58:13] our fighters and who are the people going to use this as an excuse and well you know I
[1:58:18] can't hire nobody because they what they doing up in Washington. And I never do what your
[1:58:24] So I'm glad that we're able to siphole through those who are getting federal money and those who ain't got no federal money and the people ain't got no federal money.
[1:58:35] You can't come and read some of them. They got your hands tied. Your hands ain't tied. You tied your hands and I think we need to know who those people are.
[1:58:45] So I'm glad that you're doing that training with your board and giving them the legal counsel that they need.
[1:58:51] So we can find out who's true to the cost and who is using this to not help the cost and we need to know who those people are.
[1:59:01] So I know Mike Morowski is out there. He will you will get to the bottom and I appreciate it.
[1:59:07] I do my best. Thank you so much.
[1:59:10] And if I may just real quick in with the business community like, you know, we have no illusion that, you know, we need a thriving business community.
[1:59:16] And I think when I talk about paradigm shifting
[1:59:18] as in melodramatic as that may sound,
[1:59:21] our sector is fairly accustomed to going to people
[1:59:24] and asking for things.
[1:59:26] It's the way it's kind of, you know, always been.
[1:59:29] Regardless if we think we know it's actually going on
[1:59:32] on the ground and can be helpful
[1:59:33] and throughout the time there's been different leaders,
[1:59:35] elected business otherwise that have latched onto that
[1:59:37] idea more like, well, these people can tell me
[1:59:39] what I need to know.
[1:59:40] It's happening a lot more now, you know,
[1:59:42] and figuring out how to codify that, create new systems,
[1:59:45] Let no good crisis go and use as I think what we're trying to do and again grateful the county commission has been so
[1:59:54] Unmetable to this conversation and more than anything with the business community and good kind
[2:00:00] Chamber, et cetera, is just we want to be part of this solution. We know we need a thriving business community. And we know it's going on. And I'll, Mike Moros, he himself. I take for granted the basic services that the sector I represent, health providers. I know I do. I don't know what it is, but I know I do. There's certainly something, but to your point president, you know, start chipping away to a different place to be. And so it's asked that they stand with us and appreciate the time. And I got to say one last point, a personal privilege, President.
[2:00:30] and you can send me out to room if you want,
[2:00:32] but I have to give credit to the original executive director
[2:00:35] of the Human Services Chamber, Mr. Andrew Chilters,
[2:00:38] sent down me at a coffee shop right across the street
[2:00:40] and said, there's this idea for a thing.
[2:00:42] And now, here we are, so thank you, Andrew.
[2:00:44] Gina Gauders-Shotta, Andrew.
[2:00:46] Andrew and Chilters is my son, by the way.
[2:00:47] So in case, it's for those who don't know, I didn't know that.
[2:00:50] I don't know, I don't know, I'm sure you didn't know that,
[2:00:52] Mike, but yeah, yeah, it was the first ED.
[2:00:56] He was the first CD.
[2:00:58] Yeah, yeah, so anyway, thank you so much.
[2:00:59] here. The work lives on. Yeah, thank you all. Appreciate it. All right. With no further,
[2:01:05] yeah, with no further ado, I am going to make a couple of motions related to executive sessions.
[2:01:10] The first one is a motion to move into executive session pursuant to ORC section 121.22G2.
[2:01:17] You can serve the sale or disposition of property. The second is an executive session pursuant
[2:01:23] to RC section 121.22G6 to discuss security arrangements and emergency protocols for the public
[2:01:29] body. Second. Commissioner Dreehouse? Yes.
[2:01:33] Commissioner Dreehouse? Yes.
[2:01:34] Commissioner Dreehouse? Yes.
[2:01:35] Commissioner Dreehouse. Thank you.